Should I become a short-stacker at the cash tables?

I would be the first person to admit that I am not a great player, but thanks to the people here I am definitely a better player than I was when I joined (thanks peeps ). At the moment I am playing break-even poker on the Double-or-Nothing $1.10 SNGs at PokerStars in order to release my bonus, but what I really enjoy is MTTs. I have dabbled with cash games a few times in the past, but have always lost my money on them.

Anyway I went to the CardsChat meet-up in London in May, and as well as meeting up with some really pleasant people there was, of course, a lot of talk about poker. One thing that really surprised me was how vehemently certain people at the meeting seemed to loathe short-stackers in cash games, but on the other hand a couple of people there were saying that it is a guaranteed way to make money (how many times have I heard that phrase during my lifetime? ).

To me it sounds like poker which you don't really have to think about too much, just follow a fairly basic set of rules and you can't go wrong.

Is it

Breaking even is really the sign of a decent player...I break even alot too.We just need to perfect various strategies.Its all too easy to be a losing player in the long run.We just have to minimumize those losing streaks.Some have perfected a certain strategy for each game.I need to learn alot more on this type of play,mainly in ring games.It really is very profitable in the long run,if we learn it and stick to a strategy of play.

Is winning a few pennies worth your immortal soul??

Short-stackers burn in HELL!!!!!!

I think Zach has posted numerous times that its not possible to show a profit from SS below $100NL due to the rake

Not even after rakeback is factored in?

I don't 100% know, but I wouldn't think so

Then why do so many people do it

I dont think ive come across very few SS reg'd playing nl$50 that do much better than breakeven. With rakeback they likely show a nice profit 24 tabling though.

You really need to look into the SS game a lot more, the whole concept is based a lot on reverse implied odds,ie getting into pots vs a full stack player with the danger of another full stacker coming in behind and stacking you. Denying full stacked player the option to set mine, and play suited connectors. This suits a SS because there is a lot of isolation play at a table of full stacks, giving your pairs a fantastic price, once if goes raise, you shove, and a re-raise, your 22-88, AQ+ becomes a profitable play with the dead money in the pot. Full stacked players have also become much much better at playing back . There is a SS reg on nl$100 that 3bets from the BB at a rate of 18%, I call him with my full stealing range from LP cause im a nit anyway.

Of course naturally this whole concept becomes mute once you are at a table with 3 or more other SS players, because you simply cannot rely on the FE that the other players provide as much, and the full stacked player can call much easier with SS players behind. Overused strat imo, not really that profitable anymore, most full stack players know how to combat it anymore. Learn to play full stacked, its much more profitable, unless you perfer playing as a total robot, and being hated on the tables.

There is a few players here that have given it a go over a decent sample of hands, Jag stands out for some reason, but tbh, I think that is a mistake. Now there are some situations where SS is a great strat imo, the ideal way is testing out a new limit for a few K hands, mainly in order to get a low variance way of seeing how the regs play when you move up, but I woudlnt even do that.

On a few I-Poker tables Ive seen total collusion of full stack regs at nl$100 deliberately taking up seats and sitting out, so that the SS cannot play profitably.

Does this imply that it needs to be done at a higher level than nl$50 to be profitable?I'm not sure that breaking even in $1.10 DoN tournaments means that - the standards are extremely low!

fwiw, my results from a period of trying out shortstacking last year.

Pretty straight forward, nothing fancy. Just shove when I think I'm even a pocket pair against overcards. I'm actually surprised at the high VPIP and low PFR; the only explanation I have is heavily limped pots completing from the SB at this level. Or maybe I filtered it wrong; I just took everything where I had less that 50 bbs.

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QFMFT!

That being said, it's not that easy to play a good shortstacking game. It's a game of relatively small edges, so you need to figure out your profitable raising and 3betting ranges pretty accurately to make it work. And you need to be able to mass-multitable to get a decent hourly winrate. And variance can be a bitch as a huge part of your pots will go to showdown, so there's some serious tilting potential.

Other than that, you edge is in the fact full stacked players are opening hands like small pp and suited connectors that don't play well 20bb deep, so you can resteal unpunished. Also, good fullstacked players will iso-raise the fishes from late position with almost any two cards, and once again you can resteal pretty wide. Basically, resteal shove against ranges that it is profitable to do so. That means you need to understand what ranges people open with when deep stacked and you need to toy around with pokerstove to figure out what can be pushed against those ranges.

Somewhat surprisingly, the money in shortstacking is at 6max, not at FR.

Open raise smaller than you would if you had a full stack. Don't forget you need to steal. Playing too tight will make you unprofitable. Like regular poker, play tight up front and (open) loose in the back.

I was a short-stacker when i started, and i do think it helps you play tight, and i will still do it from time to time, and i have made 2 times the amount that i have gone in with...

I think its that they don't want to come in with the max buy in, and it could be the size of there BR.
When i have loaded with the max buy in, i have killed the Short-stackers....

Thats my thoughts on, now i will get hammer for it..

See here.

Go for it if it fits into your play style. I'm not really a fan of it because I need some equity to make people fold post flop. I also like to have the stack size to play suited connectors and set mine.

I rarely see people who play this strategy and show a good profit. There is a person however named Nezlee in 25NL who really plays this strategy well. He plays like 15 tables at once and only shoves premiums. He then leaves when ever he doubles up. However, you would need a good sized bank roll and robotic play to pull this off.

At the lower levels there's two distinct types of short stackers though, those that play like nits (9/7) and those that play like all the other loose players. The nits are only playing the top category of hands plus maybe a few middle pairs when they think other players are playing any Ace type hands, and they're being aggressive with them. The other type are the ones with no bankroll and are much easier to bust.

My advice against playing short stacked is that you quickly forget how to play postflop. It's really easy to multitable and pretty easy to pick the simplest appropriate situations, but it gets boring and limiting after a while. If you want practice looking for situations, play the super-turbo sit and goes on Full Tilt where everyone starts with 10bbs.

All in all, i guess you could call me a nit, but then again.. I will play PP the whole way down to 2s, and i have been working Ax and Kx in to hands....
Thought i do need to go in to some NL games short stacked, to reshow some of the players at 2NL that i don't need a lot to beat them...
I will even raise well SS just to see how many would call, or who will put me all in.

[quote=NoWuckingFurries;1202752]I would be the first person to admit that I am not a great player, but thanks to the people here I am definitely a better player than I was when I joined (thanks peeps ). At the moment I am playing break-even poker on the Double-or-Nothing $1.10 SNGs at PokerStars in order to release my bonus, but what I really enjoy is MTTs. I have dabbled with cash games a few times in the past, but have always lost my money on them.


I can't speak to ring games, although when I do play them at the micros I multi-table and just play very ABC poker. Patience is the key but I find them boring, albeit profitable.

I think if you really prefer MTTs you should try and improve your game there. The book by Rizen, Pearljammer, and Apestyles is quite illuminating. It also helps to have a strong push/fold stretegy (and the stones to use it) and the willingness to be a thief

I've incorporated a lot of tournament and cash strategies into my preference...SNGs...as well as specific SNG plays. I've found there's no one sure strategy no matter what your preference is and incorporating plays and styles from different specialties helps round out your game.

and you usually play Full Ring?

he is right...its easier to reship people in 6 max vs 9.

Sorry, but what does "reship" mean?

im not as advanced as some people, so ill just put it like this. if i have a big hand, i wanna get paid off. how much potential money do you lose by coming to the table shortstacked? seems to me that would be a decent argument against doing it, at the very least come in with half a stack.

My first ever hand as a short stack:

PokerStars Game #29044722308: Hold'em No Limit ($0.50/$1.00) - 2009/06/06 1:13:46 ET
Table 'Echo II' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: elms007 ($20 in chips)
Seat 2: Wongj ($82 in chips)
Seat 3: Emperor XIX ($20 in chips)
Seat 5: badfish321 ($115.75 in chips)
Seat 6: Imod2002 ($25.05 in chips)
Seat 7: KentuckyRuLz ($129.45 in chips)
Seat 9: 1ee7 ($100 in chips)
Wongj: posts small blind $0.50
Emperor XIX: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Emperor XIX [Kc Ks]
badfish321: folds
Imod2002: folds
KentuckyRuLz: folds
1ee7: raises $2 to $3
elms007: folds
Wongj: folds
Emperor XIX: raises $7 to $10
1ee7: raises $24 to $34
Emperor XIX: calls $10 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($14) returned to 1ee7
*** FLOP *** [Kh 9s 7d]
*** TURN *** [Kh 9s 7d] 9♥
*** RIVER *** [Kh 9s 7d 9h] K♦
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Emperor XIX: shows [Kc Ks] (four of a kind, Kings)
1ee7: mucks hand
Emperor XIX collected $38.50 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $40.50 | Rake $2
Board [Kh 9s 7d 9h Kd]
Seat 1: elms007 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Wongj (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: Emperor XIX (big blind) showed [Kc Ks] and won ($38.50) with four of a kind, Kings
Seat 5: badfish321 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Imod2002 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: KentuckyRuLz folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: 1ee7 mucked [Qd Ac]


lol. Shortstacks suck. (Working with a stake right now)

3bet shove.

Just for fun, this is a graph of me shortstacking 100nl 6max for 30 minutes (12 tabling). I played 17/16/7 and 3bet 11%. I'm not really a shortstacking pro - nor do i want to become one - but i think i played decently.

Notice the variance. it's $20 min buyings, so i had 6 buy-in swings in a tiny session.

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I do it and I've made money. That being said, I'm a weird case. I consider myself to be a very capable SS player, whereas with a big stack, I feel far less comfortable and fail to stay patient. If it really fits your strengths, do it, but if not, you may just want to use a full buy in.

I'm a much better short stack player then sitting down with a full stake. Always find the large stake are willing to call with weak hands which of course doubles me up.

I seem to make alot of money from being a short stack!!

it's not weird at all. you only need half a brain to be a decent short stacker. Deep stack play actually requires the whole thing.

It requires way less knowledge/skill to do so. My guess is that alot of the SS'rs in micro limits aren't confident in their post-flop play and have limited knowledge about cash game play in general (I know this was the case for me when first trying to transition over to cash game play after having strictly played SNGs & MTTs). I'm not saying it doesn't take some skill & knowledge... to be a good SS'r you still need to know what you're doing if you're hoping to show a profit (read Belgo's post above.. '+1' to that!!).

In my opinion, playing deepstacked cash-game NLHE requires a vast amount of skill (if you're actually going to be any good at it.... seems many think they are... but I think this is another common pitfall with many players - - 'overestimating one's abilities and skill level'.

There are plenty of good posts online that give one a base for playing DeepStacked CashGame play. Perhaps you'd be interested in reading RyanFee's 6-MaxNL Strategy Guide? (it's free,.. at ryanfee.com). Reading this guide (after having read numerous other more basic ones) really opened my eyes up about the cash game, namely 6-MaxNL. There are also articles on how to play SS style on cash tables. If you can get good at it I think it would/could be profitable (although I don't have a sample of HH's myself to show to prove such).. BUT.. I think the goal of any poker player would be to learn how to play Deepstacked poker as there is just so much more to it and the oppurtunities for learning become endless. To me this is way more enticing as it is one of the things I like most about this game of poker >>> learning, learning, learning... and learning some more. If you play alot of DoN's and are okay with playing that type of poker, perhaps developing a good SS game would be great for you? idk.. personally I can't be bothered with DoN's.

I'm trying to move on one step at a time from being a FRW to being a "real" poker player, and DONs seemed an easy way for an inexperienced player to clear their bonus quickly without losing any money. Now I'm wondering whether SS cash table games might be another logical step along the way...

I figured it was something like that. Don't worry, I'll soon lose the half I have and then I'll just be a complete fish.

Thats a pretty good idea actually... I wish I'd thought of that before I lost all of my deposit and my bonus

Check out my post in the rigged thread

http://www.cardschat.com/f13/online-poker-rigged-investigation-70058/index78.html#post1206179

it gives you some kind of idea of how much the rake is going to eat into you.

Playing short stacked at a table gets you to keep playing tight and not make crazy aggressive plays which you might make with a larger stack. Personally i like to have a larger stack so I can play more aggressively but it really just depends on your style and which you are most comfortable playing with.

I would have thought that the short-stackers would play more aggressively.

Well as of latlet I have taken a liking to the lo limit games on full tilt.
I will buy in for 3 buyins a minimum and have did really well for a week playing that way.
I have yet had to reload on any tables(been playing 2/3 tables at a time).
I took to playing lo limit he to release a bonus on full tilt during the happy hour and found myself really liking it alot more than sngs.
But I always make sure I have at least 5 buyins per table I am playing on.
I know that isn't proper brm but thats what I have been doing without cutting into my roll.